


A Little Break

by pennypaperbrain



Series: Pennypaperbrain's Miscellaneous Ficlets [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:11:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennypaperbrain/pseuds/pennypaperbrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and Moriarty find that they are perfect opposites, irresistibly compelling to each other. A dark alternative ending for The Great Game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Break

This is a break in reality.

Sherlock and Moriarty kiss beside the pool. It’s gentle and soft because they’ve both been everything else, and this is what’s left.

*

Sherlock doesn’t know when he lowered the gun, or which of them moved first. He knows that the shifting, psychotic tilts of Moriarty’s face drew him forwards, fascinated. He could have shot the man in the stomach. He still might.

A taste of cigarettes. The labile planes of Moriarty’s face continue to twitch as Sherlock runs a tongue along his lower lip, the uncontrolled changes startlingly erotic. Sherlock’s forbidden opposite. The tips of their tongues meet between open mouths, then Sherlock lets Moriarty in. He is an ice sculpture, swallowing fire. Moriarty’s right hand fists in his hair.

Sherlock has for so long held himself rigid. Even he needs to rest.

Moriarty is erect. With their left hands, working almost against each other, they open the Westwood trousers. Both of them are hardening, now, and between the twin pressures is the gun. In Sherlock’s control. Control is what Sherlock is.

If he were to ever to have released himself, it would have been with John, because John means safety, John is tough and could contain him. Too late for that. Moriarty has claimed him. And Moriarty is broken, able to contain nothing. Sherlock must do it instead.

Sherlock likes broken things, in a way. Disorder is motivating. He will master even this. Yes.

*

There is always fire in Moriarty’s head. It’s just a question of what to feed to the flames: another part of his own mind, or a victim.

He is certainly not insane. He is the sum of his life, but the parts overlap and spill and become the rage. When certain incidents cycle through his brain he is unable to contain them – that’s what people DO! – and all the metaphors and rhythms break but not for long because he’s outside time, the pain eternally with him. He regroups and re-faces the outer world of puppets, rebalances his own movements by pulling their strings. Working at a remove is smoothest.

Sherlock is from the outside world, but he is not a victim as such. He is cold petrol for the furnace. His mind is a gun lodged between the lobes of Moriarty’s brain, parting the pain from its source, raising him from endless cycles to the pitch of ultimate game.

Sherlock’s gradually increasing attention has been a lever, opening Moriarty out. He knows the favour was returned. Compelling and appalling. A reason to perform. And the violence is routine but the sweetness is rare: ‘my dear’, so sexy, the chorus of victims’ distress. On Sherlock’s barren shoulder Moriarty finds that wants to rest now. Just for a moment, before Sherlock’s death.

They kiss, pressed together. The hardness of gun and bone and memory, the softness of lips and worn-out regrets. This is only the slightest break in reality, and it will be followed by Sherlock’s death.

*

John catches his breath.

This is beyond his belief. It is not happening. The bomb swaddling him clicks and shifts; sniper lights dance like fireflies on – no more description. The game between Sherlock and Moriarty starves him.

Sherlock raises the gun and shoots both himself and Moriarty through the head.

WHY?

Why any of it? Now what’s left?


End file.
